On the 'come hither' scent

No autumn visit to Piedmont is complete without a truffle hunt and a visit to Alba's famous market, says Tamasin Day Lewis

HOW do you describe a smell? If you have never smelt a white truffle, you cannot begin to imagine its heavy rankness; the alluring perfume that is at once a tidal wave of seduction, raw, earthy, sexy, come hither, that almost - not quite - revolts, saying, "don't touch me, keep away, you don't want me, you can't have me".

The elusive truffle can be found at the Mercato del Tartufo, the famous market in Alba: this delightful glimpse of 'hidden Italy' is buried among the Piedmont hills

Analysis is supererogatory, but Mauro Carbone, truffle expert from the University of Turin, declares the white truffle's three main perfumes to be garlic, hay and honey.

I couldn't come to Turin at the height of the truffle season without heading into the Piedmontese hills to hunt this elusive, underground nugget and visit the Mercato del Tartufo, the famous truffle market in Alba.

We begin with lunch at the magical Castello di Santa Vittoria, a 15th-century castle-restaurant in the Roero hills that looks out across the coiling river Tanaro and the Langhe hills to the Alps. Today, the hills are shrouded in the famous nebbiola, a mist that hangs over them like a long skein of silk.

First, we have a warm fonduta, or fondue, of supple, scented Fontina cheese over which a snowstorm of white truffle is grated. Next, a simple dish of tagliarini, lubricated with a bit of butter and cream, with more white truffles.

Pasta, eggs, cream and rice are the perfect background for the truffle. It needs blandness and heat to flick a trip-switch and liberate its intense perfume.

Then we head for the hazelnut groves near the little village of Mango to meet Renato and his dog, Diana. Diana bounds in ragged chevrons through the trees and almost immediately starts scuffing up the sandy earth.

Renato digs his metal-ended stick, a bastone, into the ground, then pulls a lethal, bladed zappa from the back of his trousers to help him delve around the hazel roots.

The first truffles of the year, in early October, are usually found near the surface, but by December, they can be 12-15in underground. A bitch can be trained from six months, a dog not until it has reached the age of two; once trained, truffle hounds are worth 500,000 lire (about £160).

Renato gently eases the sandy earth away with his hands to reveal a perfect, prune-sized black truffle, like a little lump of coal.

"I take a different path every day," Renato tells me. "Sometimes I go out at 2am and search for eight hours without finding a truffle; the dogs work better at night, undisturbed by other noises."

Over the past 30 years, Renato says, truffles have diminished by about 60 per cent as a result of pollution, pesticides and the surrounding weeds not being cleared properly.

"After floods in 1994, the money was used to control the river beds, not for reforestation. People had left the mountains and moved to the valleys, and depopulation meant there was no political strength to help protect the truffles."

He will not recommend a seller in tomorrow's market, saying: "Difficile, difficile." It seems there are unscrupulous truffle traders who bring inferior truffles in from other areas, and those who rub the perfume of best Alba truffles on to lesser nuggets.

In the end, we repair to his house and the scales and jars of white truffles are brought out for inspection.

I choose a couple and am bidden to keep them wrapped in kitchen paper in a jam jar, exchanging the wet paper for dry every day, like a nappy, and returning them to the fridge where they will keep for more than a week. I can, if I wish, place some eggs in the jar for a couple of days. They will absorb the truffle's perfume wondrously.

The following morning, we stroll through Alba to the Mercato del Tartufo. To enter is to be overwhelmed. The perfume is all-pervasive. At the entrance, under the hawk-like gaze of a guard, stands a glass case with four spectacularly large truffles, their strange, brain-like fissures and crenellations covered with a fine dusting of sandy earth.

Each year, the finder of the largest truffle is rewarded with a gold truffle. I ask to meet Franco Robaldo, the owner of the most princely specimen. He flashes a gold-toothed, brown almond-eyed smile and begins.

"It was Tuesday night. It rained this week, so I knew it was better weather for truffles, the moisture, the humidity. Zara, my dog, always understands if it's a big or small truffle from the perfume; if it's big, she gets very excited and her tail wags very quickly.

'I always go to the same areas," Franco adds. "I started when I was a child, with my uncle; he still goes, and he's 80. I write down the date and the time in each place, because if you close up the hole well, next year you will find more truffles, sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller. This is the biggest I've ever found, weighing 660 grams (about 1 lb 3oz).

"The emotion was incredible. When Zara found it, I had to keep her away. I started digging with my fingers. It was becoming bigger and bigger, like my excitement and fear, because if you break it, it's worth less. When I'd uncovered it all, the emotion was so great I could hardly breathe.

"It was like winning the lottery. I got home at 1.30am and brought it into the bedroom to show my wife. I kissed the dog for half an hour. My wife said, 'You kiss the dog more than you kiss me.' "

Franco's truffle should be worth nearly £900. Perhaps it's his wife who should be doing the kissing.

This week's recipes

White truffle baked with cream, eggs and Jerusalem artichoke

This was undoubtedly the outstanding dish of the trip, cooked by Silvio Berrino, a talented young chef at the Ristorante Castello di Mango.

Nose to the ground: Renato and his truffle-hunting dog, Diana

I try not to give recipes with ingredients that are difficult to find; I always try to suggest substitutes. This dish could be made with any intensely perfumed fungi, such as ceps, sliced wafer thin, but it will not have the magic of the white truffle. Buy one from any good Italian deli; you need only a tiny amount.

When I asked how Silvio had made it, I presumed it would be unreproduceable, but it worked perfectly; I wasn't left with a heap of glass shattered by the heat of the oven.

Steam four Jerusalem artichokes in their skins until soft, pop them out of their skins and put them through the coarse blade of a mouli. Now, break an organic egg into each glass. Add another layer of cream to cover the egg - you will be within a whisker of the top of the glass by now - and grate some white truffle over the surface. Miraculously, the ingredients stay put in their layers.

Put the glasses in a deep roasting tin and pour boiling water up to the top of the stems. Bake in the middle of the oven. Check after 10 minutes; if the egg is no longer transparent, the dish is done. Mine took just under 15 minutes. You don't want a really runny egg - because it will escape into the cream - but one where the yolk is a bit set around the edges. Each layer is a treasure trove of taste as you work your way to the bottom; the artichoke is a perfect, earthy foil to the truffle's delicacy, the salty anchovy a brilliant contrast to the creamy richness.

Tajarin di casa alle ortiche con salsa di nocciole (serves 6)

This simple dish of homemade nettle noodles with Piedmontese hazelnut sauce was a stunner of a dish from Carlo Zarri, with whom we dined at the Villa San Carlo at Cortemilia. You can make it with plain fresh tagliarini, but try to find the best fresh, roasted hazelnuts you can. Piedmont is famous for its hazelnuts; I have never tasted such fresh, intense nuts as those I brought home from Alba.

For the hazelnut sauce:

Good-sized knob of butter

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

4 fl oz/100ml extra-virgin olive oil

6-7oz/170g-200g hazelnuts - from Piedmont, if possible

1 pinch chilli pepper

Melt the butter in a large pot. Add the garlic, olive oil, the hazelnuts - crushed but not ground, because you want them nibbed rather than chunky - and the chilli pepper, and fry together briefly. Pour your drained pasta into the sauce, stir well to coat and serve. I served a sprouting broccoli salad with mine, which is a delicious accompaniment to any creamy or oily pasta dish.

Sprouting broccoli salad

Steam the little florets, stalks and leaves, until al dente. Throw them into your serving dish and toss, while still hot, in the best olive oil, lemon juice, sea salt and black pepper to taste. Very finely chopped red chilli, fried for 30 seconds in the olive oil, is a good addition if you want to turn the heat up.

You can scatter a couple of finely chopped anchovies into the dish if you feel like it. Serve while still warm.